Customer Reviews

Rating: 1 out of 5Dictated but Not ReadMore hack dictation to the computer... I doubt that they typed even a word of this book. I can't believe that publishers still give these two money! Scripts don't work... poor descriptions. Go to O'Reilly for a real book on Java. This doesn't deserve a star... unless you are on Survivor Island and need paper to start a fire.

Rating: 5 out of 5Great introductionI maintain content for a corporate extranet. I have often implemented JavaScript scripts and made some modifications. However, I had never really understood how the scripts worked. I got this book and "Beginning JavaScript" by Paul Wilton, so I could learn the nuts and bolts. After reading this I started to actually understand the scripts I was implementing. I recommend that beginners start by reading the Visual Quickstart (VQ) book and then move onto something more indepth like Wilton's book. VQ is an excellent concise introduction to the basics of JavaScript. It gives a quick explanation of things such as event handlers, methods, properties, functions and loops. You should be able to finish this book in a couple of weeks and have a solid understanding of the basics of JavaScript. However, you will then need something more indepth to truly learn to program complex JavaScripts.

Rating: 4 out of 5A good book to add but should not be your only bookI have two other Javascript books and have used on-line resources from time to time. I found this fifth edition to be a worthy addition. It isn't intended to be the ultimate comprehensive book, nor does it target the advanced scripter who wants the latest in tips and tricks. As it says in the introduction, the authors "concentrate on showing you how to get useful tasks done with JavaScript without a lot of extraneous information." The "Where to Learn More" section directs you to an excellent sampling of on-line resources that more than adequately addresses what you might find lacking in this book.

There are lots of practical examples and there is a companion site on-line where you can check out the examples and access the code for copy and pasting.

Since there are so many different ways to do things with JavaScript, you may or may not like the choices the authors make in the examples but you can't go far wrong imitating their style.

The language is clear and easy for me to understand, which really helps.

Javascript can be really frustrating compared to some other languages because there is zero tolerance for error and the error messages generated are of such little help in identifying the problem. The tips this book offers on debugging are worth way more than the price of the book!